The Last of Us: How the apocalypse brought about gender equality

Naughty Dog's acclaimed The Last of Us bucked the video game trend with its
complex, well-defined women characters. Stace Harman sees key scenes
performed live by its actors and explores how characters such as Ellie and
Tess were a success.

Annie Wersching (Tess) and Ashley Johnson (Ellie) perform a scene for The Last of Us One Night Live.

By Stace Harman

12:00PM BST 18 Aug 2014

WARNING: The following contains plot spoilers for The Last of Us

For reasons likely rooted in my early childhood - with its lack of worthy male role models and ever-present strong women to look up to - I've always been drawn to female characters in the creative arts. In video games, these characters provide an alternative to the muscle-bound cliché that usually sits front and centre and with whom I feel no affiliation. Unfortunately, they are all too often clichés themselves and when they're not sporting impractical clothing and possessing gravity defying physical attributes they are playing second fiddle to male cast members or treated as a prize. Occasionally though, they are complex, well-defined characters and there are rare examples of believable people amongst the sea of ludicrously proportioned, highly-sexualised fantasy figures.

The Last of Us does this better than most. The manner in which Joel and Ellie move through its eerily familiar environments and interact with the wonderful realised world, its inhabitants and each other is what provides the basis for The Last of Us and its sublime DLC, Left Behind, to progress the medium as a whole. Some of this magic was translated to a stage in Santa Monica in late July 2014 in the form of The Last of Us Live. This largely successful curio of a video game event combined live performances by maestro composer Gustavo Santaolalla, explanatory interjections by creative director Neil Druckmann and the acting of several key scenes from the game by principal cast members, Hana Hayes (Sarah), Merle Dandridge (Marlene), Annie Wersching (Tess), Troy Baker (Joel) and BAFTA-winning Ashley Johnson (Ellie).

That four of the actors to take to the stage should be female is no coincidence and speaks volumes for the achievement of Druckmann's writing and the actors' performances in delivering a range of believable characters. As in the game, the actors here were not playing second fiddle to what is by far the best of Baker's many video game roles and together they possess a chemistry that makes them mesmerising to watch. On the night, this translated to a rousing reception to a spoof Les Miserables-style musical number and the ability of Baker and Johnson to transcend the fact that they really look nothing like their in-game personas. Druckmann's strength for character writing was as evident here as it is in the game and it served to emphasise that he didn't stumble upon the holy grail of writing strong female characters, he just wrote strong characters full-stop.

This is most clearly demonstrated by a brief thought experiment you can try in which you swap the gender of all of the characters in the game and discover that the personalities, relationships and dynamics would all still work thanks to the relative lack of cliché. In fact, such are my own preconceptions, that the notion of a female David seems even more sinister than Nolan North's turn as the softly-spoken menace, while casting Ellie and Riley as young teenage boys could highlight the dynamic of their relationship as depicted in Left Behind in a yet more surprisingly light.

Riley and Ellie in The Last of Us: Left Behind

The decisions of gender were not taken lightly, however, and there's a reason that it's Joel and Ellie, and not Jolene and Elliott. Druckmann talks of a desire to have the relationship between the central pairing appear at the outset to be a typical case of a strong, gruff man protecting a precocious but ultimately vulnerable young girl, before later tearing down that carefully constructed image. There are signs throughout that Joel's taciturn nature is born of a refusal to confront his grief, first at Sarah's death and then Tess'. There are hints that, despite her youth, Ellie possesses a strength of character and determination of higher purpose that her supposed guardian lacks; Joel may have the tools to survive this world but it's Ellie who has the capacity to find meaning in it.

However, such is the writing, performances and the blending of narrative through systemic game play elements that by the time their roles are reversed, we can understand and empathise with Joel's weakness. As he says himself "You keep finding something to fight for" and for him it's a fourteen year old girl that has become his world; he now needs her more than she needs him.

After the online live stream of The Last of Us Live was concluded, the audience in the theatre was treated to a new scene, intended to serve as an epilogue to the game's bittersweet ending. It showed Ellie and Joel as part of Maria and Tommy's community in Jackson. Joel visits Ellie's room and alludes to the fact that they haven't spoken much in the few weeks since they arrived there. Joel is visibly nervous, while Ellie is cool and slightly detached; a distance has clearly grown between them. Joel brings out a guitar and grants Ellie's earlier requests that he sing something for her and when afterwards she accepts the gift of the guitar, there are the first stirrings of reconciliation. The scene closes on Joel leaving the room and Ellie playing a single note that mirrors the simplicity of her earlier "OK", only this time there's more hope than ambiguity.

Ashley Johnson (Ellie) and Troy baker (Joel) perform a live alternative ending to The Last of Us

It was a comforting end to the night but one that I'm glad never made it into the game. It would surely have lessened the impact of Ellie and Joel's journey with an unspoken allusion to the fact that everything was going to work out. Better to let you wonder at what might come next and at how the shift in the dynamic of their relationship might manifest itself further down the line. Better, too, that Ellie as a strong female lead was left to have the last word.

There's still an awfully long way to go until we can talk about characters in video games without having to add gender or racial qualifiers but games like The Last of Us prove that it can be done. For all of the ill-conceived decisions that result in poorly-written or non-existent female characters throughout the medium, there are encouraging signs that suggest we won't have to wait for the next apocalypse to meet characters, of both genders, of which we can be proud.